Monday, September 14, 2009

Everybody's got a Strat, right?

It's true, you either own one yourself or know someone who has one. Maybe you traded it for that Fender GDEC amp that's sitting in your bass players garage right now. Or maybe your Mom's new "boyfriend" had one that he played in his Grateful Dead cover band, "Turtle Junction". Well whatever the case may be, it's pretty safe to say that 97 out of 100 people have at least played a Fender Stratocaster once in their lives. With that said, my preferred "backline" and arsenal of gear, both on stage and in the studio, has never included a Strat. And among the guitars that I have played in my life, I have never officially declared myself to be a "Strat player."

But I do have Strat.

It was the first guitar I really coveted. My dad bought it from some pawn shop in '92. A vintage-looking "Squier II", Arctic White with maple neck...it was so awesome! I always wanted to play it, or even just hear it. Then one magical day in '95 my Dad bought a brand new sunburst American Standard and handed the old one down to me! For years I played that guitar and loved it. When I went off to college, my affinity for Hardcore and emo/screamo/dreamo left the Strat in its case; never to be played again. As my tone snobbery fully heightened, other, more expensive guitars made their way into the lineup, with the ol' Strat taking a tertiary priority in my list of tonal possibilities. In fact, I had almost forgotten about it altogether.

Then last weekend I found it...

It was leaning against the wall of my old room in my Mom's house; no case, old strings, rusty screws on the pick guard, the maple neck aged just every so finely. I grabbed it and immediately took it over to "The Space." I plugged it into my Fender Twin on the Vibrato channel, with the "Bright" switch on.

5 comments:

The first guitar that was every "mine" was a white 1994 Fender Squier Bullet. My parents went together with my grandparents to get it for me the Christmas of the year I started playing guitar. It was amazing! I played that guitar all through high school until I saved up enough to upgrade to an Ibanez AS80 Semi Hollowbody my senior year. Now sadly it's down in my basement somewhere probably in worse condition than yours. I'm inspired to go and find it now and string it up! Maybe we should have a jam session on our old Fender Squiers!

for any potential snobs out there, guitars are like anything else--each one is unique--some are bad, some are good. The single-coil "spank" of this particular Squier sounds awesome! This is what Strats are supposed to be about. If SRV came back and had only this Squier and my American Standard to choose from, I fear my AmStd Strat would feel as I felt in the 4th grade when I was the "last picked" in kickball.